Are you thinking about purchasing and installing access points?

We have met Johan Tidholm, Wireless Architect at SecureNet IT in Gothenburg, who is an expert on purchasing and installing access points. Using for example Cisco, HPE and Juniper access points.

What is your best tip for purchasing Access Points?

Do not buy consumer products. It's the best tip, I think. In any case, not in a business environment. The difference is night and day in quality. You get to pay significantly more for a company-adapted product. Absolutely, you do, but the functionality cannot be compared. The antenna technology cannot be compared and what you get it is a product that you will live with for many, many years and have a wireless network that works.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Buying Used IT

There is no greater danger of running used as long as you know what you are looking for in technology. The technology within IT goes very fast forward. You get new standards. It comes very quickly so there you just have to think about: "What are the standards I want and what do I want to achieve?". Then you look at what is there for products to retrieve and if you can buy used hardware so ... reuse, it's perfect! It is perfect for all parties I think.

What to consider before installing Access Points?

You sit down and interview the customer first to get the requirements. It is not often a customer really knows what they want their wireless network to be more than that it should be wireless, but there can actually be other needs such as: to be able to stream, to be able to run telephony in the wireless network, surveillance cameras or whatever it may be. Then an interview first to get the requirements. There we start.

When we have received this information then it is the next step and it is to go out to the location and look at it to see what material is used. Are there thick glass or glass windows, steel frames, thick doors? And what are the materials in the walls? Concrete or plaster? All that has an impact on the wireless network that we have to take into consideration.

We ask to get a blueprint from the customer and record all these things we see and then we also do a radio measurement. We measure in the air and put color on what we cannot see with a tool. There we also see our radio disturbances so that we can plan these in order to get an optimal network. This is really the big start, I think, on how to do a wi-fi implementation.

We also want to look at the wired network because it is the foundation on which we build the wireless network. Wireless network is just an extension of a wired network simply put. Then you start.